Abstract

Based on the premise that the environment plays a vital role in the health and wellbeing of populations, this Lecture presents research currently being undertaken by BIOCORE Research & Consultancy International and Nottingham Trent University, UK. The aim of the Lecture is to introduce the concept of using First-Person View (FPV) vehicles in the realm of environmental analysis.

An FPV, also known as remote-person view (RPV), or simply video piloting, is a method used to control a radio-controlled vehicle from the driver or pilot's viewpoint. Most commonly it is used to pilot an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or a radio-controlled aircraft. The vehicle is either driven or piloted remotely from a first-person perspective via an on-board camera, fed wirelessly to video goggles or a video monitor. More sophisticated setups include a pan-and-tilt camera controlled by a gyroscope sensor in the pilot's goggles and with dual on-board cameras, enabling a true stereoscopic view.

From an environmental research point of view, an FPV can conceptually offer many opportunities for the measurement, analysis and health risk assessment of environmental air pollutants (NOx, SOx, CO, PM2.5, PM10) and events. In a highly polluted city, such as Metro Manila, the use of an FPV to capture and provide air pollution data can be achieved through the mounting of pollutant sensors on the FPV which, along with corresponding GPS data, can exactly identify locations of pollution hotspots within a certain radius of operation. This data can, in turn, be further analysed and subsequently correlated to health data within the same conurbation in order to establish the individual effects of air pollutants on specific disease (such as cardiovascular or respiratory) development and/or exacerbation.